Robert A. George's ruminations on politics, race, pop culture, sports, comic books & various other sundry temptations of the human condition. Yes, he writes for the New York Post, but the views here are solely his own.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Snatching Defeat From Victory...

Conservatives often like to refer to Republicans as "the Stupid Party" and Democrats as "the Evil Party." Well, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) demonstrated today that some individuals can manage to channel equal parts of moral evil and political stupidity.

In Thursday's grilling of Secretary of State Condolleezza Rice on the Bush administration's "surge" plan, Boxer unloaded this bromide:

Boxer made it personal.

"I'm not going to pay a personal price," she said. "My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

Boxer talked about families losing loved ones and soldiers in hospital burn units. "These are the people who pay the price."

Rice said evenly that she understands the sacrifice of service members and families.

"I visit them. I know what they're going through. I talk to their families. I see it. I could never and I can never do anything to replace any of those lost men and women in uniform, or the diplomats, some of whom. ..."

Boxer cut her off.

"Madam Secretary, please," she said. "I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions."

"You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family"? (emphasis added). Rice's status as a, "spinster" (as they used to call it) is now fair game to add rhetorical flare to an attack on administration policy?

Despicable.

Consider the uproar if a Republican senator said something similar to, say, Janet Reno in the Clinton administration? But Boxer should get a free pass because she happens to be the same gender as Rice? No way.

Going after the bollixed-up Iraq policy was fair game -- from senators of both parties, no question. Ripping the whole "surge" plan is also fine. But suggesting the secretary of state doesn't care about the human costs because she's childless?

And the Democrats wonder why the public is wary about their ability to govern with any sense of fairness or decency. It's this kind of haughty, condescending behavior that turned Americans against Democrats in the first place.

Well, anyway, I'll remember this great example that Sen. Boxer has given the country.

In turn, perhaps it might be good to remind the public about why a wealthy white Democratic woman of privilege has no problem supporting public schools that leave poor black kids uneducated and prepped for a lives of low wages and likely incarceration.

More vile comments like that above and it won't be too long before the country starts waxing nostalgic for that Republican majority -- a thought that Boxer's fellow Democrats don't want to consider.